We learn in civics class that each branch of the federal government is subject to certain checks and balances. Unfortunately, we learn that in real life there are few checks on the growing power of the judiciary.

Clark Neily documents this judicial abuse in his book, Terms of Engagement. The Constitution provides mechanisms that would constrain the power of judges, but most of these have been interpreted out of existence. He proposes that: “judges should base their rulings on the text of the Constitution instead of their own policy preferences.”

We are all familiar with times in which judges impose their will on people and the law as if they are legislators. Clark Neily also provides many examples of when judges abdicate their role and responsibility.

One example is Sandy Meadows, a widow who lived by herself in Louisiana and loved working with flowers. She had little education and nothing in the bank when her husband died. She supported herself making floral arrangements at an Albertson’s grocery store. Unfortunately, Louisiana is the one state in the country that licenses florists, just like doctors and lawyers.

When the Louisiana Horticulture Commission found out that Sandy was managing the floral department at Albertson’s without a license, they threatened to shut it down. The store had no choice and fired Sandy. She had no car, no phone, and eventually no electricity because she could not afford to pay her utility bill. Sandy Meadows died alone because the state would not allow to work in her profession and because Clark Neily could not convince a judge to protect her right to do so.

In the past, most of the cases of judicial abuse affected a small segment of society: florists, cosmetologists, undertakers, or other professions. The decision by Chief Justice John Roberts to twist the Constitution in order to approve the Affordable Care Act is affecting nearly all of us.

Clark Neily’s book is a reminder that the courts have too much power and are having a significant negative impact on our lives.

In previous commentaries, I have talked about big data. Recently I read a column that predicted that big data might soon have a big problem. That problem will be storage space. The Internet is growing so fast that a few years from now, we won’t have enough storage for all the data we are collecting.

Gary Gentry at the digital storage manufacturer Seagate estimates that the world is going to need about six zettabytes of storage capacity by 2020. At current rates of research and manufacturing, we might only have half of that capacity.

In case you are wondering, a zettabyte is a thousand exabytes. An exabyte is a thousand petabytes.  A petabyte is a thousand terabytes. And a terabyte is a thousand gigbytes. To put it another way, six zettabytes is enough to hold over 200 million years of HD video.

Now, you may ask, why do we need so much storage capacity? The simple answer is that we store everything. The cyber world is awash in data. Every imaginable piece of data is collected and stored. And as I have discussed in previous commentaries, that is not necessarily a good thing.

By the way, it isn’t just the government and business that are collecting and storing data. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that a typical household with teenagers might own 10 Internet-connected devices. We are storing pictures, videos, and all sorts of data every hour of every day. That organization also predicts that the number of Internet-connected devices will increase to 50 in less than ten years.

Let me venture a prediction. If it becomes clear that we have too much data and not enough storage space, then there will be pressure to start deleting data. At first, that might be easy. Get rid of old data no one needs. But that won’t be enough, and then we will likely have contentious debates about what data to store and what data to delete. Should we purge unneeded Facebook posts? What about old YouTube videos? It should be an interesting discussion.

America is in the midst of redefining marriage. Some of these redefinitions are talking place in the legislatures and courtrooms. But I would like to talk about another place where marriage is being redefined. This is happening through cohabitation.

Some individuals merely started out postponing marriage. But over time they ended up postponing marriage indefinitely. An increasing proportion of the population has adopted this “marriage is optional” perspective and never married. They may have had a number of live-in relationships, but they never joined the ranks of those who married. For them singleness was not a transition but a lifestyle.

Over the last few decades, the U.S. Census Bureau has documented the increasing percentage of people who fit into the category of “adults living alone.” These are often lumped into a larger category of “non-family households.” Within this larger category are singles that are living alone as well as a growing number of unmarried, cohabiting couples that are “living together.” The U.S. Census Bureau estimated there are more than twelve million Americans living with an unmarried opposite-sex partner and another 1.2 million Americans living with a same-sex partner.

These numbers are unprecedented. It is estimated that during most of the 1960s and 1970s, only about a half a million Americans were living together. And by 1980, that number was just 1.5 million. Now that number is more than twelve million.

Cohabiting couples are also changing the nature of marriage. Researchers estimate that more than half of Americans will cohabit at one time or another prior to marriage. And this arrangement often includes children. The traditional stereotype of two young, childless people living together is not completely accurate. Some 40 percent of cohabiting relationships involve children.

Marriage may not yet be on the endangered species list, but many more couples are choosing to live together rather than get married.

One of the cases the Supreme Court will hear this year concerns abortion protests. But the case isn’t really about abortion. It is about free speech. A law enacted in 2000 in Massachusetts requires pro-life protesters and sidewalk counselors to stay at least 35 feet away from the entrance to an abortion clinic. The protesters claim that the statute violates their First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights.

This especially affects pro-life counselors who try to talk women out of getting an abortion. One of the lawyers explains that, “You can’t stand outside 35 feet and communicate with people.” To be effective, “You have to have eye contact.”

The lower court upheld the Massachusetts statue arguing that the law upholds both free speech and abortion rights. It acknowledged that the nation is divided about the morality of the practice, but argued that the state has the right to restrict access of pro-life protesters whose message might be upsetting to women seeking abortion.

But haven’t there been other times when the message of protesters might upset others? Civil rights marchers were no doubt upsetting to Southern racists. A Ku Klux Klan march is certainly upsetting to people of color. Animal rights activists can be upsetting to people working in a meat packing plant.

Our Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech, and that means some speech might be upsetting or controversial to others. The pro-life lawyers in this case believe they can prove that this law is a “clear case of viewpoint discrimination.”

In the past, the Supreme Court has rejected other cases involving a buffer zone. This case could certainly be a turning point in the debate and discussion about how much access pro-life protesters and sidewalk counselors will be given around abortion clinics. If the court rules in favor of the law, they will be doing so because of an a priori commitment to abortion. If they rule against the law, it will strengthen the freedom of speech of those working to save the lives of the unborn.

This is a Supreme Court case worth watching.

Who knew that a global gift exchange using shoeboxes could be so controversial? I am talking about Operation Christmas Child, a project created by Dave Cook and organized by Samaritan’s Purse.

You and your church have probably participated in this annual event. You pack a shoebox with a few small toys and lots of essentials (school supplies and hygiene products). Samaritan’s Purse encloses a story about Jesus and then sends it to needy children all over the world.

Public schools (from South Carolina to Colorado) are under attack for providing students with an opportunity to give to other needy children. The American Humanist Association has been threatening lawsuits against any school that dares to provide this opportunity for its students. Their threatening letter demands “that the school terminate all promotion, sponsorship, endorsement or affiliation with Operation Christmas Child immediately.”

The humanists argue that allowing students to participate in this program violates the First Amendment. That would be the First Amendment that says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” You know, that one. The First Amendment provides for the freedom OF religion. These humanists instead want to argue that the First Amendment should provide them with for freedom FROM religion.

Although the schools have backed down, parents in some schools stepped up. They are determined to make the Operation Christmas Child the largest drive ever. These parents put out a notice for the children to bring the shoeboxes to locations other than the school. The kindness of these students will bless other needy children.

Unfortunately, the students in the rest of the schools learned the false lesson that sending a shoebox of toys and essentials is unconstitutional. They learned that Christian charity is not a good thing to do. They also learned that in the public schools these days, no good deed goes unpunished.

Should the Bible be considered fiction? That was a question that surfaced when a

pastor in Simi Valley, California noticed that all the Bibles at a Costco were labeled as

fiction. It was a two-day story that resulted in Costco issuing this apology stating that the

“distributor mislabeled a small percentage of the Bibles.” They took responsibility and

acknowledged that they “should have caught the mistake.”

In this case, we are told to forgive and forget. Or to use a sports metaphor, “no

harm, no foul.” And I am willing to move on, but call me skeptical. Somehow I just

doubt that a Qur’an would ever be labeled as fiction in Costco or any bookstore. I doubt

you find the book Dianetics written by Scientology’s founder L Ron Hubbard in the

fiction section. And I can think of a number of autobiographies that probably deserve to

be in the fiction section of a bookstore.

Steven Smith (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) said the fiction label

probably says more about the labeler than about Costco or even the Bible. We live in a

day when it is becoming more and more acceptable to label the Bible as fiction. Pick up

any of the books written by the so-called “New Atheists.” They will assure you that

Christianity is false and religion is a dangerous enterprise. So we shouldn’t be surprised

that someone in distribution decided to promote his or her views about the Bible through

a Costco price tag.

When the Los Angeles Times wrote about this, they told a similar story from a

California Middle School. A teacher instructed students to read a nonfiction book for

homework. When the teacher saw that a seventh-grader brought a Bible, he said, “That’s

not a nonfiction book.” A short disagreement followed in which the student said he felt

humiliated. To prove his point, the teacher polled the students, asking how many thought

the Bible was a nonfiction book. All of two raised their hands and agreed with the student.

The incident in Costco might have been a mistake, but I expect to see more

incidents like this from skeptics who believe the Bible is merely fiction.